


brinksmanship

by dickovny



Category: In the Loop (2009) & The Thick of It, The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Exhibitionism, M/M, Threesome, Voyeurism, just guys being dudes, lord forgive me, malcolm and jamie's crippling competitive streaks, pre-series young dudes shenanigans, two bros fucking on opposite sides of a bedroom wall because they're not gay, unfettered id-posting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:27:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29056686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dickovny/pseuds/dickovny
Summary: Malcolm always plays to win. When he and Jamie move into a new flat - with a very thin wall between them - this competitive urge rapidly spirals out of control.
Relationships: Jamie MacDonald/Malcolm Tucker
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18





	brinksmanship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SweatingHerLadyBollocksOff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweatingHerLadyBollocksOff/gifts).



> For [sweatingherladybollocksoff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweatingHerLadyBollocksOff/pseuds/SweatingHerLadyBollocksOff), who offhandedly referenced the very thin wall between young Malcolm and Jamie's bedrooms and how that might inspire a little competition. I took that to ... A Place. Apparently.

This has got to fucking stop.

Malcolm goes out to piss for all of two and a half fucking minutes. Tops. And he comes back to _this._ Spent an hour pretending to give a single solitary fucking _shite_ about Corrie just so that leggy blonde girl with the nice smile and the even nicer tits would come back to the flat with him. And now, Jamie’s got his hands on her arse and his tongue down her throat. A slow song blares out of the pub’s jukebox, some fucking Orange Juice ballad distorted by the cheap speakers and Jamie’s got the girl swaying lazily along with it, conjoined at the fucking crotch.

Which he could get over, honestly. If it wasn’t the third time in as many weeks. And if he didn’t keep peeking over her shoulder at him. Making this weird, threatening fucking eye contact as he obscenely drags his lips along her throat. Just _sneering_ at him. All fangs and blue eyes. He beams at him when he slips a hand up underneath her skirt - and Malcolm does his best to ignore the tiny flick of his tongue across his teeth.

He doesn’t know the girl’s name. He doubts Jamie does either.

That’s never seemed to matter. In _whatever_ this is. 

It didn’t start like this. They had always been competitive but - this was _something_ else. If he had to put his finger on it, he’d say it began when they moved into the new flat.

The old place was small. Pitifully tiny. Technically a single bedroom, if you squinted. But that “bedroom” felt more like a closet than anything else. Couldn’t even afford a real bed. Just had a lumpy mattress on the floor and a pull-out sofa in the space that passed for a sitting room. Since Malcolm’s name was on the lease he had claimed the bedroom and Jamie had been left with the sofa. This meant the mechanics of getting laid were rather _complicated._ If Malcolm wanted to bring home a girl, then Jamie would have to fuck off for a few hours - and if Jamie wanted to bring home a girl then - well. He couldn’t use the sofa for _that_ so Malcolm would leave and let Jamie use his “bed” under the strictest agreement that he would wash the fucking linens after.

[Sometimes he didn’t. Because they were young and stupid and drunk and poor and didn’t have the time or energy. And he would never admit it to himself, but he didn’t _mind_ that. Didn’t mind the way the sheets smelled of Jamie’s sweat when he drunkenly kicked the boy and his lass out to the sitting room and passed out in his bed. He’d bury his face in the pillow and inhale the mixture of lager and stale cigarettes and Jamie’s cheap fucking aftershave and try really hard not to think about _why_ his heart was racing. Or why his dreams were always so fucking _intense_ those nights.]

The new flat is palatial in comparison. Two _real_ bedrooms with working doors that lock and enough space for actual beds. The kind with headboards and frames that lift off the floor and box springs and all the trimmings. The kind of beds that - as he comes to learn - _move._ The kind of beds that make solid thuds against the decidedly _not_ solid wall that separates their bedrooms.

That first series of languid dull _thunks_ \- that is where the trouble begins. Some godforsaken fucked-off hour on a Saturday night - a Sunday morning actually, if one were to get all fucking technical about it. They had gone to the pub to celebrate the big move and naturally had brought some birds home to christen the place. Malcolm’s drunk enough that he genuinely can’t remember how they got home or what Jamie’s girl even _looked like._ He’s not even sure that they ended up with the girls they set out to or if they switched at some point along the way. But there’s a snatch in front of him that he intends to do something with. No matter how much the room spins he at least has that under control, if the way the lass is _mewling_ at what he’s doing with his tongue is any indication. He’s losing himself in the act - swept away in the raw-nerve pleasure of her flesh against his lips. She goes shrill in a not-totally-unpleasant capacity when he starts working his hand into the mix and he’s really enjoying how her thighs are pleasantly squeezing against the sides of his head when -

_thunk_

He can ignore the first one. The beer haze insulates his brain from the intrusion, and with a shake of his head he presses forward with perhaps a little more aplomb than usual.

_thunk **thunk** thunk_

Whatever is hitting the wall is doing so with enough force and gusto to make his own headboard rattle in response. A vague concern starts to form in the back of his mind, this half-baked fear that the flat’s being broken into or someone’s being murdered or something but _then_ there’s yelling. Really distinct yelling. A grunting, throaty masculine kind of thing -

“Fuckin’ _hell._ Your mate’s loud, isn’t he?” she whines, raking her nails against his scalp as she forces his face closer against her. Something about this - about _hearing_ Jamie - is doing it for her, because the louder he gets the more desperate _she_ gets. A particularly ripe ‘ _godyesfuckme_ ’ tears out of her throat at this furious little circle he makes with his tongue - a cry so loud that the thuds stop, just for a moment. The other side of the wall goes totally still.

Something in Malcolm _snaps_. Some weird place of pride/masculinity/whatever the fuck buried deep within his psyche is prodded to life by the _absence_ of noise. As if he’s won somehow. Before he’s aware of it - before he can really articulate the why of it all - he’s got three fingers in her cunt and is trying to kill her with his mouth and she yells _again_ and the banging starts back up and it’s formed this electric feedback loop of escalating depravity that digs into his guts and tingles down to his toes.

At some point he’s stopped fucking _her,_ at least in any meaningful sense. And is instead just playing with the sound on the other side of the wall.

Malcolm doesn’t remember too much the next morning but he does remember that it was - without a doubt - the best sex that he has ever had in his life.

He chalks it up to

  * **A:** A Lot of Beer
  * **B:** The Girl, and
  * **C:** Having a Real Bed.



He does not acknowledge the reality of the thing. That Malcolm is - when one strips away everything else - merely the impetus to _win_ shambling around in a human skin-suit. Even as a young boy he was competitive to a fault. Would get in terrible bloody dust-ups over football matches. Screaming rows over card games. He does not back down from a challenge and has a pronounced weakness for dares. The idea that sex could be a _competition -_ that had never occurred to him at all.

[Doesn’t matter that the person he’s playing against isn’t even in the room.]

The next time - another weekend after a long shout-y week of work, another pub crawl, another blacked out stumble back to the flat with an interchangeable pair of cunts - he refuses to be outdone. Malcolm opts for a swift offense. The second they’re on the bed he’s nipping at her skin and maneuvering the girl so that they face the wall, splaying her hands against the headboard and diving into her at an obscene rhythm. All before Jamie has a chance to even shut his fucking door.

This girl isn’t as loud as the last one, which is a _little_ disappointing. He’s not going to lose though. Malcolm Tucker doesn’t fucking _lose._ Certainly not to that little shite. So he makes up for the lack of _vocals_ with sheer force alone. A steady rumble that only gets louder and faster when he hears the corresponding sound from the other side.

[He tries to ignore the fact that - with a less verbal companion - he can hear Jamie rather clearly this go round. And that Jamie can ~~probably~~ ~~definitely~~ possibly hear him. And that neither of them seem the slightest bit deterred by this situation.]

This game gets stale rather quickly. There isn’t a clear winner - how does one judge ‘loudest repetitive headboard’? Not to mention - Malcolm’s not even sure he’s playing _against_ Jamie. Not really, anyway. Neither of them have actually articulated the rules. They simply wake up in the morning and take turns vomiting and pissing and scrubbing the insides of their mouths before shuffling around and eating toast. Ignoring the massive elephant in the room. The one that sounds like Jamie right before he comes.

Leave it to the lad to up the stakes.

Jamie’s got a loud one this time - this little slip of a thing with cropped jet-black hair and not a scrap of meat on her bones but who can _yell_ like a fucking freight train pulling out of the station. She’s doing the whole repetitive ‘oh god yeh - like that yeh’ fucking act _over and over_ so loud Malcolm isn’t entertained or even slightly aroused. It’s just giving him a fucking migraine. His gal is barely responding - which is fair, he’s not even really trying - can’t focus past the din one room over. A shrill ‘oh _love_ i’m gonna - don’t stop -’ and a strangled _scream_.

And then - clear as day - a knock. Knuckles rapping once against the wall. As if to say ‘Jamie one. Malcolm zero.’

A switch is flipped. Malcolm isn’t bored anymore. Not at all. Malcolm is suddenly _extremely_ determined. The poor lasses probably won’t be able to think or walk or speak coherently when all is said and done - Malcolm managed to squeeze out four knocks while Jamie tapped out at a respectable three. Although she _may_ have faked that fourth one just to get him to leave her alone.

[He rationalizes that Jamie was merely showing off. He does not consider the possibility that Jamie was dismayed at his lack of participation. That Jamie knocked because Malcolm wasn’t playing along anymore and he _missed_ it. This thought does something very odd to Malcolm’s insides that he doesn’t like one bit.]

This tides them over for several more weeks.

They still don’t talk about it. Not really. Once, over breakfast - after a particularly _insane_ night that saw Jamie wrack up a slightly-less-than-believable [and never replicated] fifth knock - Jamie swallows his toast and clanks a fork against his plate. 

“So, Malc. That third time, the one where she kinda did all that ‘Fuckin’ Christ’ stuff.” It’s the first time either of them have even acknowledged that a score is being _kept_. Malcolm notes the way his fingers tremble and the strange stiff way Jamie keeps moving his jaw. Maybe the fifth knock was real after all. “What was ye doin?"

Malcolm does not answer. He stares at Jamie, flinging him his best ‘shut yerself the fuck up’ glare. There is a moment of very _very_ odd silence where he can swear Jamie is looking directly at his mouth, of all places. And then the man shrugs and sets about clearing their plates.

He’d say that this conversation never happened at all - that none of it was happening - but things just keep getting _weirder._ There’s the Saturday night that he doesn’t go out. He’s got an article to bang out before things go to print and he gets stuck running from one side of town to the other like a fucking maniac trying to get the damn thing updated in time. It’s the middle of the night when he finally pours himself through the door - and he’s immediately greeted by the sight of Jamie shagging a girl on the sofa.

She’s straddling him, his fingers digging into her hips as he pistons himself upward into her like a man possessed - and at first he thinks that Jamie doesn’t hear him come in. But then he’s kissing the girl’s _ear and looking directly at him_. Malcolm stops dead in his tracks - he should go - he should start walking back to his room _right now_ but Jamie just keeps staring at him and then he grins like a fucking shark and _bites the girl’s shoulder -_ and she comes - hard and loud and Malcolm’s cock is _throbbing_ against his trousers - and he practically runs away and slams the door behind him. That one did his head right in. That one kept him up for hours staring at the ceiling and wondering where the _hell_ he went wrong.

Then there’s the time where they’re at the pub, doing their usual scan of the crowd. Both of them are already verging on thoroughly fucking pissed - Jamie points to a willowy brunette that he took home a few weeks ago and shrugs and before Malcolm can think about it and what it all means he tells him no. “Nah, didnae like her. Too loud. Couldnae hear ye at all over her fuckin’ caterwaulin’. Pick a different one.”

He regrets it immediately. Turns a shade of ruddy crimson and thinks about eating a bullet. To his credit, Jamie simply quirks an eyebrow and moves on like none of _that_ fucking happened.

Even _worse_ is later that night - when they’re back to the stupid simple headboard game. And Malcolm keeps trying to listen to the - frankly really truly gorgeous - girl beneath him but all he can hear is his _loud ridiculous fuckin’ flatmate_ shouting and groaning and then. Well. There’s that familiar old tug in his groin and tightness in his balls and he’s coming so hard and abrupt he feels like his head’s gonna come off - which would be concerning enough - if it weren’t for the fact that he can hear Jamie doing the same fucking thing. And if that wasn’t possibly maybe the thing that tipped him right over the edge to begin with.

Fucking _hell_.

They don’t look each other in the eyes for the next week.

Not until they’re drunk _again_ \- even by their standards - and somebody’s put on “Ghost Town” which always takes Jamie to a special level of stupid. This really nasty little blonde girl named Serena - barely comes up to Malcolm’s fucking shoulder, even with the ridiculous heels she’s got on - is clutching his chest and sliding her hips against his. Which is _great_. Absolutely spectacular. But then there’s hands on his hips - more hands than there should be anyway - _bigger_ hands. Jamie’s hands. Because Jamie is _behind_ her now and has wrapped his arms around her and is clutching at Malcolm and Serena’s head is lolling back against Jamie and - all of it is too much. Jamie’s looking at him again - his cornflower eyes searing the fiber of his fucking being and making his cock throb - and the room is so hot he thinks he’s gonna sweat to death. Gonna drown poor little Serena. Malcolm allows himself to get carried away in whatever the fuck this is for the duration of the six minute track before he’s detaching himself and stumbling away to the alley for a smoke and some cool air to clear his head.

Jamie ends up taking Serena and Malcolm gets stuck with her friend Agnes, which is all well and good until Agnes starts crying about her ex who binned her naught but two weeks ago the _second_ they get to the flat. Whatever. Malcolm doesn’t care - not after Jamie’s confusing display earlier. He’s just gonna go to sleep - not even gonna have a quick tug at himself. The headboard rattle is so old-hat that it barely registers anymore, and his eyelids are finally fluttering shut when the door opens and closes very quietly. Serena slips between his sheets, muttering something about her and Jamie feeling sorry for him - that she didn’t know that Agnes was going to go all _weird_ like that. She slides down before he can think about it, before he can register that she smells like Jamie’s aftershave and her skin is soaked with sweat, and he practically comes unglued when she takes his cock in her mouth.

[He is immensely thankful for his and Jamie’s strict adherence to condom usage. That is at least _one thing_ he doesn’t need to think about when he slides into her - warm and wet and sighing at him. It’s a lazier fuck than he’s used to. But he makes sure to bang on the headboard once or twice. As a courtesy. A little thanks.]

By now, he is confused. And tired. And fraying at the seams and at a loss as to where - exactly - any of this fucking leads. But one thing is for sure.

He is really _really_ sick of Jamie’s new game. The one where he waits for Malcolm to choose a girl and then swipes her right from under his nose. He’s about to tell him to fuck right the fuck off, to go eat a fucking pint glass and choke on the shards and _die_ , when Jamie whispers something in Corrie Girl’s ear and she laughs. Loud and brash. And she turns, beckoning Malcolm to her with a wave.

“C’mon then. Let’s get a move on,” she coos, hooking her arm around Malcolm’s. He throws a questioning glance at Jamie, who reassures him with a smile and a wave of his hand. “Your mate here said you were taking me back to your flat, yeah? Right nasty pair you are. Filthy fucks.”

There is a moment - looking from Jamie to Corrie Girl and back again - where for the first time in _months_ everything seems to make a terrific amount of sense. It’s a dare. A game. And Malcolm isn’t gonna back down from _that_.

“Yeah, taking you back to the flat. _We_ are taking you back. To _our_ flat.”

He laces his fingers with Jamie’s behind her back.

He doesn’t think about it too hard.


End file.
